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Technology giant Cisco will make it easier for businesses in manufacturing and other sectors to introduce IoT devices to the workplace by rolling out a suite of new products intended to boost scale, flexibility and security for industrial IoT deployments.

The new offerings, designed to help to bridge the gap between IT and OT (operational technology used in manufacturing), include Catalyst industrial switches designed for IoT infrastructure and managed through the Cisco DNA Center, as well as IOS XE-powered industrial IR1101 Integrated Services Routers. Cisco said both products were purpose-built for IoT environments. The tools are managed by Cisco DNA Center (Cisco’s central management tool for enterprise networks) which allows businesses to manage their infrastructure in a single area, even if they are being used across different areas and environments.

The IR1101 Integrated Services Routers are modular, which means customers can upgrade to new features such as 5G without removing and replacing older technology.

The family of switches, software, developer tools and blueprints merge IoT and industrial networking with intent-based networking (IBN), classic IT security, monitoring and other things. IBN systems provide a new way to build and operate networks that improve network availability and agility.

The Cisco DNA Centre has automation capabilities, assurance setting, fabric provisioning and policy-based segmentation. It is also home to Cisco’s IBN initiative offering customers the ability to automatically implement network and policy changes on the move and ensure data delivery. The IoT field network director software manages multiservice networks of Cisco industrial, connected grid routers and endpoints.

Cisco, which has north of 40,000, said solutions can be rapidly deployed through automation and modified to accommodate new technologies such as a 5G network.